As part of the 7th ZINE VITRINE Open Call, artist Lin Gerkman is continuing his series in which his original photographs alternate with images from the family archive of several generations. Through the juxtaposition, he explores the relationship betweens the experience of a residence and the feeling of home as something fleeting, volatile.
Curated by: Ana Zibelnik and Lara Plavčak
Artistic project manager: Simona Jerala
Lin Gerkman (1995) graduated in industrial design from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, where he is currently pursuing a master’s degree. He is active in the field of design and visual arts. He begins with photography, often linking it to other media. In his works, he explores current events and the remnants of recent history that shape him. He is interested in understanding the relationship of the individual to the home, the effects of social transitions and the relationship between public and private. His works have been featured at solo and group exhibitions in Slovenia and abroad.
Counting Rituals is an act of remembrance — an attempt to reconstitute the life of the author’s mother that began to surface only in the aftermath of her passing. Gerkman’s photographs, much like the family archive he weaves into the narrative, suggest a certain compulsion, if not obsession, with collecting, archiving and piecing together the bits of a life close and familiar, yet utterly strange. The gesture of meticulous archiving becomes synonymous with the process of grieving.
Simultaneously, the series is a tender portrait of the author’s mother and the close relationship she had with nature, and his anticipation of losing her. Throughout his more recent photographs, the motive of a house becomes particularly present, evoking the notions of absence, instability and a fundamental change of his most intimate surroundings. Every day between Christmas and Valentine’s Day, Gerkman waited that somebody would come and look after his mother. During long walks, he returned to the same places time after time, looking for traces. A deeply personal narrative that inevitably reminds us of the strangeness of death — its power to conclude everything, from love to the most mundane rituals.
(text: Ana Zibelnik)
Organisation: Kino Šiška.
9. 12. – 13. 1. 2022
